1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an output method and apparatus for setting an output environment.
2. Related Background Art
In a prior art output apparatus of this type such as a printer, a group of commands are prepared to determine a print environment and a host computer sends those control commands to command various operations from the host computer to the printer. Examples of specific control commands are a copy count command to print the same page by a designated number of sheets, a font selection command to select a character font and a character size, a vertical and horizontal margin set command to adjust an overall position of a print area on a print image, a reduction/enlargement command to designate enlargement of reduction to print a B4 size image on an A4 size sheet, for example, and various other commands defined for each printer. When the printer receives data from the host computer, it analyzes the data to distinguish the print data from the control command, and analyzes the type of the control command and the command parameters to execute a required operation.
In such a printer, however, data is normally saved in one file in which the control command and the print data are mixedly present and it is sent to the printer as required. A reset command is first entered to reset various control settings of the printer to eliminate an effect from a previous job and then control commands such as the destination of the number of copies are entered to define an operation to a data group to be processed. Then, a control command to change the character font or size is entered whenever required in the print data for a plurality of pages. Such data may be prepared by a user by directly entering the control command or it may be prepared as a data file on a so-called application software such as a word processor or a database software.
However, when it is required to modify the print operation in the prepared data file, it is necessary to check the print file to modify the control command or re-execute the application software to reenter the command because the control commands have been embedded in the data file.
Specific examples are to amend the number of copies of 1 set in the data file to 5 or to modify a left margin set command in order to shift the print area on the sheet to the right to leave a binding margin.
Further, when a function of the operation of the control command is expanded or a control parameter is added in a new product of the printer, the application software does not support such an additional function and the function cannot be used until the application software is versioned up.
For example, in a printer in which various fonts can be used by replacing cartridges, even if it is desired to use a new font designation in an application software of a font cartridge later marketed, the font cannot be used if it is not supported, that is, if it cannot be converted to a control command.
In order to solve the above problems, it has been proposed to reset a print environment, which is called set-up data or a set-up job. This technique is shown in FIG. 6. After power-on (S601), the printer is set to a print environment preset in an internal non-volatile memory (S602). Then, it receives a set-up job (S603) so that it is reset to a print environment designated by the set-up job (S604). This environment is valid up to data groups (1, 2, . . . n) received (S605, S606, S607) until the power is re-entered (S608). For data groups received after the re-power-on (S609, S610), they are processed in the print environment stored in the non-volatile memory.
Even in such a case, when an operator using the printer sends a data group, he/she must reset the printer to the status assumed at the power-on or issue a set-up job. In an environment in which the printer is shared by more than one host device (data sources), the print environment set to one host device by the set-up job always effects data of other host devices. In an environment in which an application program is used as a data group, a data group including a reset process must be prepared in addition to the data group of the application program in order to return the environment set up by the set-up job to the initial status.
Alternatively, a plurality of groups of print environment setting modification commands (hereinafter set-up job) for modifying the settings of the print data group may be received, and when the same environment item is set a plurality of times, the last set set-up job may be given a priority.
In this case, however, if another set-up job is issued to modify the print environment prior to the print data group including the set-up job, the setting included in the print data group is valid and the setting modification of the previously issued set-up job is useless. As a result, the setting modification to the print data including the set-up job cannot be done by the other set-up job.